John Dyneley Prince
| John Dyneley Prince | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 17, 1868 New York City |
| Died | November 11, 1945 (aged 77) Manhattan, New York |
| Parent(s) | John Dyneley Prince Anna Maria Morris |
| Relatives | Reverdy Johnson, great-grandfather |
John Dyneley Prince (April 17, 1868 – October 11, 1945) was an American linguist, diplomat, and politician. He was a professor at New York University and Columbia University, minister to Denmark and Yugoslavia, and leader of both houses of the New Jersey Legislature.
Prince was born in New York City in 1868, the son of John Dyneley Prince and Anna Maria Morris. He was the grandson of John Dyneley Prince and Mary Travers on his paternal side, and Thomas H. Morris and Mary Johnson on his maternal side. His great-grandfather was Reverdy Johnson, United States Senator from Maryland who also served as United States Attorney General. He attended Columbia Grammar School.
Prince had a strong interest in foreign languages as a child, acquiring basic skills in speaking the Romani and Shelta languages by the age of 12, after reading Charles Godfrey Leland's ethnographic accounts of the Gypsies. As retold in his 1939 memoir Fragments from Babel, he ran away with another boy from their families in New York to a gypsy camp near Newark, New Jersey, where they spent three days there, and were accepted because of his proficiency in their language. He also learned Welsh and Turkish in his youth.
...
Wikipedia